Those We Lost
by Timeline15
Summary: It's been two days since Hordak's portal was closed. Glimmer is still reeling from her loss, and terrified of her new responsibilities. She seems intent on suffering through it alone, but Adora and Bow have no intention of letting that happen. (One-shot)


It had been two days since Adora had closed Hordak's portal. Two days since Angella had sacrificed herself to make it possible. Two days since Glimmer had last left her room. Adora and Bow had made repeated attempts to talk to her of course, but knocks on the door went unanswered, and climbing up the castle wall had rewarded them only with a locked window. Drawn curtains had obscured any view into the room, and any amount of shouting had been met with only silence.

Adora was adamant that today was the day that would change. She would have preferred to continue to be delicate with Glimmer, given how difficult the past two days must have been, but she wasn't about to let her friend suffer alone. Adora took a deep breath as she stood in front of the bedroom door and unsheathed her sword. There was a time and place for being delicate, and that time had passed.

A bright flash of light shone through the hallway. Moments later, the door was reduced to splinters, as She-Ra clattered through it with an ungainly shoulder charge, aided by her shield. As she got up from the floor and dusted herself down, she peered into the dim light of the room, her eyes flitting around hoping to catch sight of Glimmer. It didn't take long before she saw her; or rather, the large lump curled up in a blanket that was almost certainly her. Glimmer was huddled under her bedclothes and made no move to look at Adora; despite the fact that she had obviously heard her enter (an eight foot tall warrior woman breaking your door down was rather hard to miss).

"Glimmer?" Adora tentatively called up to her.

"Go away Adora" Glimmer replied hoarsely from beneath the blanket. "I don't want to do this right now."

Adora's face contorted into a grimace, but she remained undeterred. "I'm not going anywhere Glimmer. I won't pretend to know that you're going through, but I _do_ know first-hand that trying to deal with this sort of thing alone _never_ ends well. I'm coming up." Curling her legs, she took one massive leap, denting the floor slightly in the process, and sailed all the way up to Glimmer's hanging bed, landing in it with an impact that almost caused both girls to tumble over the side.

"Gah! Adora, are you crazy?!" Glimmer yelled, sitting up and finally poking her head out of her covers. Adora's face went slack when she saw Glimmer. The young princess's eyes were puffy and red, and even now she looked on the verge of another fresh bout of tears. There was a brief glow as Adora shifted back to normal, and sat silently for a moment in front of her friend. After an agonizing silence, she finally found the words she was looking for.

"Glimmer… I'm so sorry. It should have been me; it was _my_ job and I didn't do it. I just… it all happened so fast; she didn't give me a chance to-"

The rest of her sentence caught in her throat as Glimmer leant against her and began sniffling. "No Adora, it's not your fault. If I hadn't taken Shadow Weaver's advice; if I hadn't made Mom feel like she had to save me-"

"Then we'd all be goners right now" Adora interjected before Glimmer could wallow any further. She held Glimmer's shoulders at arms' length and looked her empathetically yet sternly in the eyes. "If you hadn't come when you did, I wouldn't have been freed, and Hordak's portal would have destroyed the whole planet. You didn't do anything wrong."

Glimmer withdrew from Adora and scrunched her blanket beneath her fists. "If I didn't do anything wrong, then why is she gone?! Something like that doesn't happen unless someone makes a mistake! Are you honestly going to try to tell me that Mom would have done what she did if she didn't think she was saving me?"

All sternness vanished from Adora's face as she looked away. "No. I don't know that she would have" she admitted.

"That's what I thought" Glimmer whimpered, moving to curl herself back under the covers. Adora grabbed her wrist before she could do so.

"Glimmer, look at me. You didn't do this; it was Angella's choice. If this were only about protecting you, she could have let _me_ take the sword; you would have been saved no matter who did it. She was saving _me_."

Glimmer sniffed and wiped her nose with one gauntlet. "Why would she do that? I mean, obviously I'm glad you came back but… she never usually did anything that reckless."

Adora stared down at the blanket, fiddling with a thread between her fingers. "I think… I think she was just tired of hiding. She spoke to me; before it happened. She told me how much she'd regretted staying behind when your dad went off to fight… and how she realised she was doing the same thing to you. She didn't want anyone to have to fight in her place anymore."

Glimmer gritted her teeth as a new wave of tears came. Scrunching her eyes shut, she didn't resist as Adora pulled her into an embrace. For a while the pair sat wordlessly, only Glimmer's muffled sobs against Adora's shirt breaking the silence. Adora stroked her friend's hair, and wished desperately that she could somehow telepathically impart some sort of comfort to her. In the end though, all she could do was be there. Once Glimmer could cry no more, the young princess finally raised her head to face Adora again.

"What are we going to do Adora? They're going to crown me Queen in a couple of days; they want me to run all of Brightmoon! I don't know how to do that! Even if I did, I wouldn't be any good at coming up with battle strategies. That was always Mom's thing. I don't _do_ plans; I charge in without thinking about anything. A queen can't be like that."

Adora gave the warmest smile she could muster as she looked down at the distraught figure of her friend. "You don't have to be able to do everything straight away. Angella's generals are handling things for now, and the rest of the Princess Alliance is picking up the slack. Once you get started, the other princesses will help you every step of the way, and so will Bow and I." Glimmer perked up ever so slightly at that, and, seeing the opportunity to finally bring some levity to the conversation, Adora continued with a smirk "Besides, if Frosta can learn to run a kingdom before turning twelve, how hard can it be?"

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Glimmer chuckled. It was only for a moment, but it was a start. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she put on a determined expression, and teleported herself and Adora down from the bed. "I know, it's just… promise me one thing, ok?"

"Of course. What is it?" asked Adora as Glimmer wandered over to her armoury.

Glimmer swung open the armoury door, and glanced at her father's staff; no, _her_ staff, which held pride of place on the wall. "Promise me we'll try to get her back" she said, her back still to Adora.

Adora had suspected that a request like that would come sooner or later, but she still found herself hesitating in response. "I know it's probably not possible" Glimmer continued, now turning to face her friend, "but we have to try, right? I can't stand the idea that she's going to be stuck in that awful place forever."

"Of course" Adora replied as she managed to collect her thoughts. "I promise you, if there's a way to get her out of there without the universe falling apart, we'll find it." No matter how brave a face she was putting on though, Adora knew just how slim the chances were of actually achieving what she had just said. Excluding the times when he'd been trying to help Adora into Glimmer's room, Bow had been working tirelessly on the problem ever since they had come back from the Fright Zone. He was a brilliant inventor, but as much as it pained Adora to admit it, he wasn't Entrapta. Even if they _had_ Entrapta, it was still at best a 50/50 chance that even _she_ would have been able to find a solution. Currently, they were at a dead end, and Adora knew it, but there would be a time for Glimmer to come to terms with that. That time was not now.

Glimmer smiled in response to Adora's assurance, but her eyes remained sad. She was young and impulsive, but she wasn't stupid; she knew that Adora wasn't expecting to succeed. "You know that the most messed up part is?" Glimmer asked, gazing back down at her staff and caressing it gently "There's a part of me that would feel better if she _was_ dead. At least that would be peaceful for her. But she's an _immortal_, Adora. She's going to be stuck in there for all eternity. Even after we're all gone, she'll still be stuck there; alone. How can I be ok when I know that she's still there, every day?" Glimmer stopped herself when she realised that she was now gripping the staff with trembling fists, her grip so tight as to hurt her own hands.

Adora walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe you don't _have_ to be ok" said the horde soldier turned hero. "Honestly, I would have been worried if you _were_ ok after what happened. Just understand that, if you even need to, you can come to me and Bow. You guys have been there for me every time I've been going through something heavy; let us do the same for you now. You don't have to handle all this alone."

Glimmer set down her staff as the tears welled up anew. This time though, she didn't fight them; she let them come.

About an hour later, the pair finally emerged from Glimmer's room. Bow, who had been pacing outside the room ever since he had come across the shattered door, ran over to them as they did so. Glimmer had cleaned herself up, but Bow could still see the signs on earlier tears on her face all too clearly. "Glimmer, hey. Are you…ok?" he asked sympathetically.

"No" replied Glimmer honestly, giving him a weak smile, "but I will be." As the three walked to the great hall, Adora and Bow hung back slightly, letting Glimmer walk a couple of steps in front, looking like the determined leader she would need to be. The two shared a glance for a moment, and Bow mouthed silently "thank you."

Adora smiled. The days to come were going to be some of the hardest of their lives, but nothing would stop the three of them as long as they had each other.


End file.
